By Antti Tuomainen
Translated by David Hackston
Published by Orenda Books https://orendabooks.co
Publishing date 28 October 2021 https://orendabooks.co.uk/product/the-rabbit-factor
288 pages ISBN 9781913193874
I read an uncorrected proof copy provided by the publisher. Many thanks to Karen for organising that for me.
From the blurb
What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the very last decimal.
And then, for the first time, Henri is faced with the incalculable. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an adventure park from his brother – its peculiar employees and troubling financial problems included. The worst of the financial issues appear to originate from big loans taken from criminal quarters…and some dangerous men are very keen to get their money back.
But what Henri really can’t compute is love. In the adventure park, Henri crosses paths with Laura, an artist with a chequered past, and a joie de vivre and erratic lifestyle that bewilders him. As the criminals go to extreme lengths to collect their debts and as Henri’s relationship with Laura deepens, he finds himself faced with situations and emotions that simply cannot be pinned down on his spreadsheets.
Synopsis
Henri, an insurance company actuary, is faced with the bane of modern office life, a new operating policy which is both touchy-feely and peppered with corporate newspeak. Henri just wants to get on with is job and produce his calculations with skill and care to detail. This is not possible, and he is essentially tricked into resigning.
A couple of weeks into a fruitless job search he is visited by a lawyer who is bearing the bad news of the death of his brother (Juhani), who is rarely in touch with, who has left him his adventure park.
It quickly becomes clear that the adventure park is not doing as well as it seems, attendances are good but there is a big black hole in its finances. Whilst he is pondering over this conundrum matter get worse by the arrival of criminals who are asking for the €220,000 that he owes them. It seems Juhani liked to play poker, somewhat badly, and borrowed €200,000 which had already clocked up €20,000 in interest. Henri points out that this is hardly a normal rate of interest and they make it clear that they are no normal bankers and expect him to pay up right away.
The solution to his problems includes money laundering and setting up a pay day loans bank, which he pitches to the boss of the criminal organisation. This proves to be a temporary reprieve, but ultimately his problems need to be eliminated, requiring actions currently outside his skill set.
The added complication is the artist Laura who is currently working as the park manager but who harbours a chequered past. Laura shows him some of life that he is missing and starts to awaken things inside him that he cannot describe or understand. He is falling in love with her.
Can he manage to solve his financial problems and save the park without losing Laura?
My thoughts
In my last review (Blood and Cinders) I noted that I rarely pay attention to book covers, that one being an exception, when lo and behold there’s another cracker. Karen from the publisher posted it on Twitter and it piqued my interest, and the blurb promised a wacky read. Spotting I’m an accountant she said she love to hear what I thought of it and was kind enough to send me proof copy, and what an enjoyable read it was.
The plot unfurls from Henri’s own peculiar first-person perspective in which the translation runs fluidly in short chapters that maintain the reader’s attention. The characters are a likeable bunch of oddballs and Henri as the narrator is engaging, you want to see how his life unfolds.
The humour is subtle and in the style of the Ealing Comedies of the 1950’s rather than brash and modern, though there are moments that nod towards Fawlty Towers in particular with one scene. The humour is clever in that it comes from Henri’s perspective and is skewed by his way of thinking such as when he is pondering over the fate of the park shortly after inheriting it. From his work in insurance, he knows that some people commit arson and then perform Onanism nearby, but ‘didn’t imagine such actions would achieve the results’ he needed. He also muses that he leaves his workplace that is turning into a playground only to inherit one.
Accountants are universally regarded as boring and are held up to comic ridicule (often rightly so). Where we gain comfort is that people who find accounting too adventurous end up as actuaries. That is an accountant joke; there’re not many. Henri is a particularly uptight one. His parents were Bohemian, his brother feckless so it seems quite logical that he would find comfort on something as rigid and reliable as mathematics. Coping mechanisms are restrictive though and this limits Henri’s experiences, it’s his incomprehension and ultimate awakening that makes this a feel-good book. He inadvertently allows his oddball staff to grow and become happier.
Can I relate to him? To a degree yes, years of study in early adulthood mean you can miss out on some experiences. I have sat in the restaurant like him and done the mental calculations on the food and drink presented, in his case the overpriced high end one whereas I have tended to do this on all-inclusive holidays trying to figure out how they make a profit! To date I have not picked a restaurant for a date on an optimal basis of average reviews, distance from respective bus stops, the weather, day of the week, time of the year and liking for spicy food though. That was a great touch as was the cost benefit analysis of the furniture quality and quantity per square foot of his flat. Daft, yes but I did work with a chap who once he had driven what he considered ‘average’ mileage in year (in his case only 6,000) he garaged it until the new year.
This is a fun, quirky book of the lightest shade of Scandi-Noir that should be savoured with a cinnamon bun and a decent cup of coffee.
Peter turns the page 